Can't Buy Happiness

So, I bought a Playstation 4.
Unboxed it. Set it up.
Played on the menus for about 5 minutes.
Then it died.

No joke. It crapped out on me and became unusable. When I push the power, a blue light flickers and it beeps once, then it dies. I called Sony, and ran their tests. They tried to boot to safe-mode, but it wouldn’t go past the first beep. The only solution was to send me a box coffin to ship it back to them with. They’re going to fix it for free and all, but it still sucks.

I’ve been really, really missing Seattle lately. 

I had been doing so well—making herds of friends and all while I was out there, but then I had to leave it all and return to the cornfield that is Southern Illinois. Most of the old friends I had here moved elsewhere, and I suppose I will move away again someday, but…

My Playstation 4 was supposed to take me back. I bought a game called Infamous: Second Son, which is set in Seattle. You can explore the city freely—it’s an open world without the linear restrictions of normal games. But, my PS4 died 5 minutes after the unboxing. Figures.

On the car ride over to the video game store, I even said, “I’m just trying to buy myself happiness.” I guess I’ve been super lonely recently. In some ways, I guess that’s by design. I’ve been really reclusive lately. I’ve felt like doing things but I’m so annoyed about how there’s nothing to do without driving a million miles away that I’m frustrated. I went to the STL Zoo recently, attempting to go out and do something by myself for myself. A self-date, I guess. I wanted to see if I could have fun alone, so I went to the STL Fair and then walked to the Zoo. It was boring. I bought myself a root beer float and sat alone eating it. It sucked. At least I know that I hate being alone, now.

The other reason I’ve been a recluse is because of my writing. I really, really want to be a writer, and I know that I have to work at it full-time, even though I already have a full-time job, if I even have a hope of ever being published. I’ve been working extremely hard at it, and writing is a lonesome activity. All of people you hang out with while writing are characters that you’ve made up in your head. Those characters are all bits and pieces of you. So, writers really are a weird sort of introvert. Self-examining, social creating, but only with fictitious copies of the self. Err.

Well, that’s my life recently. Also, more weird dreams.

I posted the other day, but I had another last night. Here it is:

I was in a giant observatory, and I walked through a painting. On the other side, the painting had become solid and so I could no longer go back. I was on the top floor of a tower, inside a room that looked like Dumbledore’s office. A tall pale man in a pinstripe suit was there, and he spoke to me about how to become immortal. Suddenly, the floor collapsed and I fell into a room surrounded by spider webs. Spiders trickled out from all the walls and gripped me. I wasn’t afraid, though. Suddenly, my dream cut to a giant open field of hilly grass and flowers. Tall women, with thin purple legs were striding over the hills singing. I was walking under them but they kept going. I woke up and Enya was playing on my computer—I guess that’s where the singing came from.



Follow me @Oxyborb and check out my website at http://www.harrisonaye.com Thanks for reading!

Pikmin 3 - My Thoughts and Ideas For Improving the Sequel

If you’ve ever read my blog, you know I don’t review games. My blog is about dissecting games and trying to analyze specifically what the problems are and how to fix them. Also, I like to give my creative ideas and constructive feedback, in hopes that I can contribute to the conversation for how games can be better.

Thorn Pikmin

This is not a review of Pikmin 3. If it were, I would say how much I loved the use of the tablet for a map, the art and sound design, the music, the characters, the puzzles. I would say how much I think Pink Pikmin were ingenious, especially when used alongside Blue Pikmin. The Bee-Queen boss battle was furiously fun. I absolutely enjoyed my time with Pikmin 3 for Wii U, which is awesome because I got it for free. When I purchased Mario Kart 8, it came with a download for P3, and to be honest, I’ve loved P3 even more than MK8.

But this isn’t a review. I want to talk about the issues I’ve had with the game and the creative ideas I have for (hopefully) the sequel (please, please make one!).

Rock and Purple

Black Pikmin

First, I just want to say this: Rock Pikmin are just a rehashed Purple Pikmin. I feel like Purple Pikmin could have been used to break glass as easily as rock ones. I feel like making a new “weighty” Pikmin showed a lack of creativity. Why do the same idea twice? It would have been just as easy to bring back purple as use rock, since they’re so similar.

Now, I want to say that Winged Pikmin are the BEST. I love them. The new abilities of Yellow Pikmin with that electricity chain thing is AWESOME. Good work! I wish there had been more of this… for example, Red Pikmin could get a fire burning on their leaves if they pass through flame, which would allow them to set fires to piles of brush or monsters. Blue Pikmin could absorb water and shoot it at enemies or move it to make ponds elsewhere… I wanted more of this kind of thing, however Yellow Pikmin were the only one of the old Pikmin to get new abilities. Also, I wish I could have gotten to play with White, Purple, and Bulborb Pikmin just for posterity's sake. Maybe they could have just been a cave-specific thing.

Missed opportunities for Rock Pikmin:

I had a bunch of cool ideas for how Rock Pikmin could have been differentiated from Purple Pikmin, and here they are:

The Spiny Blue Shell of Mario Kart: An In-Depth Discussion on Why It Sucks and How to Fix It

We all know that the spiny shell weapon in Mario Kart is the cheapest load of crap ever, but I’ve never seen an article articulating exactly why it is so unbalanced and unfair. So, I sought to correct that gap (much like the spiny shell tries to correct the 1st position gap).

As with any weapon in the game, there is an attacker and a target. In the case of the blue shell, the attacker is usually one of the last positioned racers and the target is always the 1st position racer. This is half the reason why the blue shell sucks.

Look at it from the perspective of the attacker: If you’re way behind, you want a weapon that will put you ahead. Your direct rivals must be taken out or bypassed before you can even think about going for the leaders. So if you’re in 7th place, who are currently your biggest rivals? 6th and 5th place. Who do you target when you fire a blue shell? The guy in way up in 1st place.

If you’re like me, you shoot the blue shell immediately to make room in your inventory for something more useful (is there any sense in holding on to it?). The 1st place kart that you’ve just taken out will surely be up-and-running again before you get close to catching up with him, and, even if you do catch up, whoever was in second place just took over as the new first place.

Some help.

hit the jump for more